By Gustavo de Arístegui, as published by La Razón.

December 14, 2025

Washington’s radical shift forces Europe to rethink its security, wartime economy, and traditional alliances in the face of China and Russia

The publication of the new U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) is the death certificate of the global order as we have known it since 1945. The document enshrines a radical break with globalism and liberal interventionism in favor of a “Civilizational Realism” and a doctrine of “Hard Sovereignty.”

It establishes a hierarchy of threats centered on naked competition between great powers, with China as the priority strategic competitor, Russia as a disruptive but manageable actor, and Iran and North Korea as regional threats to contain. 

At the same time, it reorganizes geographical priorities toward the Indo-Pacific and the Western Hemisphere, conditions the value of alliances on much more demanding burden-sharing, and makes economic-technological power — debt, investments, semiconductors, AI, and control of maritime routes — the new central battlefield. 

Threat Taxonomy: Enemies, Adversaries, and Competitors

The Strategy sets China as the “main strategic competitor” and the only actor with the intention and growing capacity to simultaneously challenge U.S. primacy in military, technological, economic, and ideological realms. Beijing is no longer viewed as a potential commercial partner but as a predatory revisionist power combining naval military expansion, a technological offensive (5G, AI, quantum computing), and influence warfare. 

Russia is redefined as an acute and immediate threat, dangerous for its nuclear arsenal and its aggression in Ukraine, but seen in the medium term as a declining power with which some form of “strategic stability” will inevitably have to be restored to prevent its total satellite status under China. 

On the other hand, actors like Iran, North Korea, and global jihadist networks have ceased to be the central focus of grand strategy and have become regional threats. The article argues, “in my very mistaken opinion,” that avoiding diversion of limited resources from great competition with China and management of the Western Hemisphere — especially against the ‘narco-dictatorships’ in Latin America now directly tied to U.S. border security — is misguided.

Priorities of the New Strategy: A Return Home

The new Strategy abandons the rhetoric of “democratic transformation” and “nation building.” Its priorities are clear: ensure internal prosperity through reindustrialization, prevent the emergence of hostile hegemonies in Eurasia, and protect supply chains. On the priority map, the Indo-Pacific occupies the absolute first place. 

Second comes, with renewed urgency under the so-called “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine (which some analysts call “Donroe”), the Western Hemisphere, where the aim is to break alliances between non-continental revisionist powers and narco-regimes. Europe appears in third place, described with a mix of frustration and demands. 

Themes like energy and food security stop being seen as technical issues and become geopolitical weapons. Food security, for instance, emerges as a vector of pressure given the U.S.’s exporting capacity, while terrorism and drug trafficking are reconfigured as hybrid threats connected to hostile powers (such as the flow of fentanyl precursors from China). 

Implications for Allies: The End of the “Free Rider”

For European allies, the Strategy is an ultimatum. Washington demands “much more” defense spending, suggesting in private forums figures close to 5% of GDP, and the end of trade imbalances. The United States acknowledges it cannot be everywhere: if it must focus on the Indo-Pacific, Europe must take on the bulk of its own conventional defense.

As we have insisted in these pages for years, this means an existential choice for Europe: remain in the comfort of the “benign protectorate” or accept that the minimum requirement is sustained defense effort, independent industrial capabilities, and the will to act in its neighborhood — the Mediterranean, Sahel, and Middle East — without waiting for the “Seventh Cavalry.” 

The Strategy implicitly warns that allies who suffer a “civilizational erasure” or lose internal cohesion will cease to be reliable partners. 

Hybrid War as the Default Condition

The distinction between peace and war has vanished. The document assumes hybrid war as the default mode of international relations. This includes cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, massive disinformation campaigns, sabotage of submarine cables, and — particularly — the use of mass migration as a weapon of social, political, and economic destabilization. 

China and Russia are described as masters of this arsenal, using shell companies, cultural institutes, and digital platforms (implicitly including TikTok) to subvert democracies from within. For Europe, the message is clear: the front line today is in its power grids, its electoral processes, and its external borders. 

New Battlefields: Geopolitics of Debt and Technology

War is no longer fought only with missiles, but with tariffs, chips, and Treasury bonds. Technological competition is existential: whoever dominates artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and quantum computing will shape the future. However, the most silent and lethal battlefield is financial. The “investment war” and pressure via public debt are tools of coercion with potentially devastating effects for debtors. 

An analysis of U.S. foreign debt holdings reveals an asymmetric vulnerability. Today, Japan is the largest foreign holder, acting as a “captive ally.” China, in a controlled decoupling process, has reduced its exposure. What’s revealing is Europe’s weight: if you combine the European Union, the UK, and actors like Switzerland and Norway, the Western bloc holds several times China’s volume. This gives Europe a geo-economic negotiating leverage it has refused to use. 

War for Control of the Sea: Naval Blockades

The document revives a Mahanian vision of global power: whoever controls the sea controls the world. It declares war for control of global chokepoints. Freedom of navigation is no longer guaranteed for free; it is ensured for friends and denied or blocked to rivals. 

The U.S. focuses on securing the Panama Canal against Chinese penetration and keeping Suez and Bab el-Mandeb open. In the Russian theater, naval containment is geographic suffocation. The Baltic becomes an “NATO lake”; the Pacific sees a combined U.S. Navy and Japanese effort to surround Russian fleets; even the Arctic is contested. 

Alliance Architecture: Circles of Trust

NATO still exists, but the core of security shifts to Anglo-Saxon and functional alliances — such as AUKUS (integration of military tech among the U.S., UK, and Australia), Five Eyes (intelligence sharing among the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), and the QUAD (operational arms for Indo-Pacific containment). 

What Deep Changes Are Coming, and What Europe Must Do

Time is running against Europe. The 2025 NSS makes clear that U.S. protection has an expiration date if there is no reciprocity. The profound and painful changes necessary include building independent defense capacities, strengthening internal cohesion, and establishing a Europe that does not rely on external guardianship.